What’s the origin of the tractor pull? Learn about the evolution of tractor sleds and how the tractor pull became a unique feature at many a local show.
Tractor pulling likely started out with two neighbors hooking their tractors together with a good log chain to see which one pulled best. Never mind things like tractor tire condition, weight, horsepower and other variables. Suffice to say, it was not an accurate, informed way to make a buying decision. That came about later at the Nebraska Tractor Test Lab, started in response to some rather specious claims made by early tractor manufacturers.
My friend Darrell Hansen, president of the Granite Threshermen’s Association, tells about taking his McCormick-Deering 10-20 to a celebration in Lester, Iowa, some 50 years ago. They used a “step on” sled. This is very simple: A group of people step on a piece of half-inch steel plate measuring about 20 feet long and 8 feet wide. The tractor starts off pulling. Along the way, folks continue to step on until the tractor quits pulling ahead. A screwdriver was stuck in the ground at the front of the sled, the sled is pulled back, measuring is done much like linesmen at the football game, and the distance traveled is figured. This is a rather slow and labor-intensive method. As an aside, this is still used for fun on Saturday night of the Granite show, being used only with slower, older tractors.
Early on, a wheeled sled employed a measuring wheel that ran along the sled to calculate distance traveled. That information then needed to be hand-carried to the announcer’s stand at the end of each pull. At the end of each pull, those sleds still had to be pulled back to the starting line.
High-tech tractor pulls
Today, as time and technology have pushed on, electronics now do the measuring off the sled’s gearing. Those numbers are relayed to a screen in the booth and announced to the crowd, some of whom cheer for their favorite puller.
Smaller sleds such as “Hotfoot,” “Cannonball” and “Bigfoot” were built locally. These are simple, self-propelled units employing gearing enabling speed of which the weight box comes to the front to be speeded up or slowed down, so as to (ideally) stop the puller before the end of the track. During the course of a show, weight is added to the box in direct relationship to the the weight and horsepower of the unit doing the pulling. The bigger the tractor, the more weight is added to the box.
More exotic sleds, aimed at stopping trucks and tractors generating a few thousand horsepower, weigh about 60,000 pounds. They employ grousers on the weight pan, as well as being able to (via hydraulics) put nearly all of the weight of the sled on the pan very quickly. Fast enough, in fact, to slam the driver ahead into his five-point safety harness! Weights are added to that unit as well during the course of a show.
Not exactly fuel efficient
One that comes to mind is “Ironman.” Ironman is used by an association that makes its appearance at Prairie Village during the annual show in Madison. After all, tractors and trucks pulling that type of sled start off at 35mph, with wheels spinning at around 85mph, reaching the end of the pull and getting stopped in 15 seconds or less if all goes well. Many of those units – tractors in name only – employ several engines as well as truck components to take the strain of several thousand horsepower, applied in rather a hurry.
Scott Jensen, a puller I know well, runs a highly modified truck burning corn alcohol. This 555-cubic inch engine, patterned after the reliable old Dodge hemi design, generates about 3,000hp. In a run of 13 seconds, it will burn 3-1/2 gallons of fuel. Or, if you stretch it out, 55 gallons to the mile!
Getting back to the basics. At Granite, we have a tractor pull on Friday night before our show called “Pulling the Rock.” This is a rather laid-back affair. Shellum Brothers come down with “Hotfoot” and their usual assortment of weights aimed at stopping anything from an early John Deere Model B to a Minneapolis-Moline G-1000. The pull generally starts off on time at 6 p.m. and normally we are finished by 11 p.m., giving folks in the stands an evening of clean (except for diesel exhaust) entertainment. So it goes. FC
Jim and Joan Lacey operate Little Village Farm, a museum of farm collectibles housed in 10 buildings at their home near Dell Rapids, S.D. Contact them at (605) 428-5979.
Artist Bob Smith lives in Canton, S.D.
Originally published as “Evolution of the Sled” in the July 2023 issue of Farm Collector magazine.
